A popular dance troupe attracted overflow crowds to the Rieman Center in Radcliffe Yard yesterday for a demonstration and informal lecture on the ground-breaking choreography of dance legend Paul Taylor. Taylor II, a six member modern dance company that has toured and taught dance internationally for the past ten years, performed several excerpts from Taylor’s diverse repertory.

“This is the first time Taylor II has performed at Harvard. Their informal demonstration is a great opportunity for students to get a sense of the creative process, the life of a dancer, and the development of new dance styles,” said Susan Larson, a coordinator in the Office for the Arts Dance Program.

Even now I can never encounter Bach's great Toccata and Fugue in D Minor without hearing Stokowski's grandiose orchestration, and Disney's inspired squiggles and strokes - like a Kandinsky abstract painting come to life - that accompanied it.

Paul Taylor probably has the same reaction, only Taylor has transported that reaction to genius. His new ballet, "Promethean Fire," which had its first public New York performance at the City Center on Tuesday night, precisely catches the ornate grandeur of Bach/Stokowski.

The most joyously accessible of all the major moderns, Paul Taylor was seen in a typically broad range of choreographic personas on Tuesday night in the opening performance of his company's two-week season at City Center. <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/07/arts/dance/07TAYL.html target=_blank>more</a>

March 8, 2003 -- THERE are two Paul Taylors out there - probably more than that, but let's concentrate on two: Paul Taylor the Good, and Paul Taylor the Silly. Of course, Paul Taylor the Good often has a touch of divine silliness woven in, while Paul Taylor the Silly is more often than not very, very good.

For Tuesday's opening City Center Gala of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Taylor the Good gave us the New York premiere of his magnificent "Promethean Fire."

On Wednesday night, Taylor the Silly demanded equal time.

So after the sublimity of Bach in "Promethean Fire" came barbershop quartet music, recorded by the Buffalo Bills, for the season's other new work, "Dream Girls," a hilarious spoof of Western guys and the gals they left home for, conjuring up a goofy, cartoonish sense of nutty fun.

The second new work of the Paul Taylor Dance Company's season at City Center is the hilarious "Dream Girls," set to barbershop quartet recordings by the Buffalo Bills. <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/arts/dance/10TAYL.html target=_blank>more</a>

One of the great pleasures of the program presented by the Paul Taylor Dance Company on Saturday night at City Center was the sound of unquenchable giggles and guffaws welling up from the audience as Mr. Taylor's wonderfully nutty "Offenbach Overtures" spilled across the stage. <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/arts/dance/12PERF.html target=_blank>More</a>

Hits, Misses, Surprises Add Up: Taylor Emerges a Clear Winner by Robert Gottlieb for The New York Observer

Audiences love Paul Taylor, and so do I. Not everything, and not always, but year in, year out, he gives me more concentrated pleasure than I get from any other dance company. This is by no means a universal view—some people find him old-fashioned (just as some people find Balanchine and Ashton old-fashioned). Others find his dancers (and some of his dances) too cute, too smiley. Others say he repeats himself. I say that these criticisms may sometimes apply, but so what? He has given us a generous array of masterpieces, and he can still surprise—what more can you ask for?

This season brought back two of his most striking works. The company’s signature piece, Esplanade(1975), never fails to thrill, with its slam-bang finale in which the dancers fling themselves across the stage in churning runs and reckless slides. You’d have to be comatose not to respond. And Last Look (1985) terrifies with its vision of despair.

That Paul Taylor is modern dance's choreographic chameleon is being demonstrated by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, which remains at the City Center through Sunday. Last Sunday afternoon, it offered three works, each totally unlike the others, each marvelous in its own way. <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/arts/dance/14IMAG.html target=_blank>more</a>

Paul Taylor was a Martha Graham dancer for six years before deciding to break away. ``There is little in others' work that doesn't irk me,'' he wrote in ``Private Domain,'' his autobiography published in 1987. The only solution was to make his own dances.

In one of his first concerts, in 1957, Taylor took a radical approach. In his solo ``Epic,'' he barely moved for 20 minutes, and he was given a now-notorious review by the musician Louis Horst in ``Dance Observer'': four square inches of blank space and the initials L.H.

If you love film, you can rent videos by favorite directors and follow their careers from start to finish. But if you love dance, that kind of devotion can be awfully frustrating: Even the best choreographers and dance companies don't always perform in the Bay Area.

It's a testimony to the persistence of Ruth Felt, president of San Francisco Performances, that the Paul Taylor Dance Company, one of the country's most celebrated modern dance organizations, is joining the select group of Bay Area regulars.

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